Novak retires...again

Yes the young Serb is quickly getting a reputation for having less endurance then a baby in a warzone (there are no puns intended towards Serbia there by the way) as he throws in the towel in yet another pivotal match.

And the man of steel...the man who can survive an entire season with glandular fever...the man who has only retired once in his career (you get the idea) Mr. Federer certainly had some harsh words to say:

"I'm almost in favor of saying, you know what, if you're not fit enough, just get out of here," Federer added. "If Novak were up two sets to love I don't think he would have retired 4-0 down in the fourth. Thanks to Andy that he retired in the end. Andy pushed him to the limits. Hats off to Andy."

I have to agree with the great man here as this makes it the forth time Novak has retired in a grandslam. After the shift over to wanting to look like Mr. universe in the vein of Andy Murray and Rafa Nadal I was certainly expecting Novak to put in the hours of sweat and toil during the off-season but i'm starting to ask the question:

What have you been doing all this time Novak?

Possibly the only player on tour to rival Novak's inability to scrap until the bitter end has to be Kei Nishikori but even he can be forgiven for still possessing a childlike frame and tender age and of course at 56 places below Novak that guy has a lot less to prove right now.

Murray falls to in-form Verdasco

So the bookies favourite is down and out, and his chances of landing a maiden grand slam title have been put on hold - for the time being at least.

Fed and Novak, clearly riled by the pre-tournament suggestions that Murray should be favourite will tonight be lying smugly in their beds. Federer had stated that the predictions "were surprising to hear", whilst Novak had angrily enquired, "what is his ranking against my ranking?'.

Neither man went out of their way to hide their incredulous tone, thats for sure!

I always feared for Murray this week, especially after he succumbed to illness and burst out into cold-sores. After losing he cut a rather different figure to the 'muscle man' who had paraded himself half-naked around Mebourne Park, winning over many of the Australian faithful. After Verdasco had his way, he look tired and dejected.

So was it illness, nerves or just a crappy day at the office? A mixture probably. I very much doubt Murray had the favourite tag praying on his mind too much. In past five encounters his passive style has been enough, but considering Verdasco has begun the season with renewed vigour and confidence, perhaps a more aggressive approach was needed. 

I am sure all the knee jerkers will be out for Murray after this, but I'm sure the classy Scot will recover. He can pick up tons of ranking points over the next few events and I fancy him to clinch a few more titles before a Grand Slam is really in his reach.

The "Djoker"

Novak has always been known for his sense of humour and child-like imitations, even if these are known to rile his opposition.

However this photo taken of him during last year's Paris Masters is a complete mystery to all.

What could he possibly be doing!?

Has Mikhail Youzhny lost brain cells?!

By George Kingsley

I'm not sure Mikhail Youzhny has fully recovered from the beating he gave himself last season. Ever since his frenzied racket attack during his match against Nicholas Almagro the Russian hasn't been the same player we all knew and loved!

Seriously, just look at his results since the Miami Masters. Despite a fairly decent showing at Wimbledon he hasn't got past the third round in ANY competition, and his highly respectable ranking of 11 has fallen to a lowly 40. 

Has the talented backhand maestro inflicted one hit too many?! You really would have thought so! 

Baghdatis is back!

By George Kingsley

Since being at the centre in last years race row between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Marcos Bagdhatis will be delighted that the focus at Melbourne Park has shifted back to his tennis. A battling 4 set loss to Djokovic which ended at 2.30am is hopefully the start of a comeback which was persistently delayed by injuries last season. Today Bagdhatis looked more like his old self; competing for every point, smiling throughout  and in stages playing some trully brilliant tennis. 

Yet the racial violence which marred last years tournament has resurfaced, first in the match between Tipsarevic and Cilic where two men were arrested for a fight in a bar. and then the following day where 30 fans were arrested during the match between Delic and Djokovic. God knows why this sort of thing keeps on flaring up during the Aussie Open, the only explanation I can think of is that the the Aussie crowd are a little more accepting of the raucous crowd. The most we ever got at Wimbledon was the odd clever dick shouting 'come on Tim' a bit louder than everyone else!

Hopefully we won't see anymore of the nonsense we have seen this week but we see more of the Bagdhatis playing at the top of his game, because on his day, he is still a match for anyone.

Who will breakthrough in 2009?

By George Kingsley 

I imagine few expected Juan Martin Del Potro to make such a quick step last year, winning 4 titles in four consecutive events and another in Auckland last week. He is now showing the sort of consistency that elevated Djokovic and Murray up into the top 4. But who next?

Gael Monfils. The self-named 'Rat' (because he will run around all day apparently) has finally begun to put his game together and show some of the talent that took him to the top of the junior rankings. He is great to watch too, combining solid defence with flat and accurate groundstrokes he can outwit his opponents in a number of different ways. Backed up by a fantastic serve and a seemingly positive turn in his unfortunate run of injuries he is starting to look like the complete package. Ironically he has tweaked his 'Rat' counterpunching style to bring in more aggressive tactics into his game. He looks to be reaping the benefits, especially after he beat Nadal so impressively in Doha. Watch out for this lanky Frenchman, he is dangerous!

Jeremy Chardy. The good looking Frenchman made his name beating fat Dave Nalbandian at Roland Garros last year. Since then he has moved steadilly up the rankings beating plenty of established top 50 players along the way. His is armed with a superb forehand, a strong serve, and a very polished all round game. Don't be surprised to see him in the top 20 or better by the end of the year.

Marin Cilic. I suppose he has already started to make the breakthrough but I fancy Cilic to break the top ten this year and possibly clinch a Masters event if he plays consistently. He is nowhere near the finished article and if he continues to improve at this pace then he will be knocking on the door in the not too distant future.

(Kit has his own picks though. I believe he is completely in love with Kei Nishikori)

Suarez-Navarro downs Venus!

George Kingsley 22.01.09

... In an absolute cracker! I probably wouldn't have bothered watching this if I hadn't have been waiting for Andy Murray. I naively thought to myself, 'the outcome is inevitable'. I also had the displeasure of watching Dellacqua versus Hantuchova a couple of days ago and it was probably the worst match I have ever seen (this is not an exaggeration), followed by Samantha Stosur who was only fractionally better.

This was a much better advert for womens tennis. A big powerful and experienced champion against a small and rather unassuming Spainiard. A no brainer surely? After losing the first set, the young Suarez-Navarro came storming out and took an early break. From there on she was absolutely exceptional, matching and bettering everything Venus could throw at her. Almost every point was closed out with a winner, it was a joy to watch.

Equally pleasing on the eye is her delightful one handed back-hand which was used to great effect, dragging Venus left right and centre and forcing her into numerous errors.

Big things beckon for this goofy and rather lovable little Spaniard. She is only 20. If she carries on like this then she will be playing the Venuses of this world a whole lot more often.

Hello and Welcome!

Indeed, welcome to our new tennis blog! Chip and Charge may appear to many of you to be a rather strange choice of name, but we reckon it's got a good ring to it. (or maybe tennis terminology is getting the better of us) Our last blog was called 'Double Bagel' until we realised 3 other imginative people had conceived the same idea. We thought of it first, honest.

So why do a tennis blog? Well me and Kit are tennis fanatics. We spent most of our time at University boring our friends (and girlfreinds even more) about pointless tennis stats and whether 'such and such' a player was on the comeback trail in a recent challenger event etc etc. Yet what we haven't done is find a viable forum for our knowledge, until now that is.

The Australian Open is a good place to start. Not far into the season and already we being treated to some mouth-watering tennis. It can only get better. And don't just expect Grand Slam coverage, sometimes the more obscure matches in the so called lesser events are the ones to pontificate about!

We hope you enjoy it. :-)